Optical engines are commonly used to transfer electronic data at high rates of speed. An optical engine includes hardware for transferring an electrical signal to an optical signal, transmitting that optical signal, receiving the optical signal, and transforming that optical signal back into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is transformed into an optical signal when the electrical signal is used to modulate an optical source device such as a laser. The light from the source is then coupled into an optical transmission medium such as an optical fiber. After traversing an optical network through various optical transmission media and reaching its destination, the light is coupled into a receiving device such as a detector. The detector then produces an electrical signal based on the received optical signal for use by digital processing circuitry.
Optical communication systems are often used to transmit data in a variety of systems such as telecommunication systems and data communication systems. Telecommunication systems often involve the transmission of data over large geographic distances ranging from a few miles to thousands of miles. Data communications often involve transmission of data throughout a datacenter. Such systems involve the transmission of data over distances ranging from a few meters to several hundred meters. The coupling components that are used to transfer an electrical signal into an optical signal and put that optical signal into an optical transmission medium such as a fiber optic cable are relatively costly. Due to this expense, optical transmission systems are generally used as a backbone of a network to transfer large amounts of data over greater distances.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.